Category: Sun

Eastern Limb Arrival

NOAA 10980 arrival on Eastern Limb

NOAA 10980 arrival on Eastern Limb
By Erika Rix

2007 12 31

Solar

NOAA 10980 arrival on Eastern Limb

Erika Rix

There were a few events of activity on the Eastern limb that day and it was reported
by Spaceweather.com that a C8 class flare “hurled a “bright CME into space.”

Gary Palmer had an excellent animation on the site the next day if you haven’t seen
it yet.  www.spaceweather.com 

Evidently excitement started about 0110 UTC.  I observed from about 1850 UT – 2005
UT.  The following sketches reflect that observation period.

Here is the animation I created with my sequence of sketches of the Eastern limb.  It
lasted from 1900 UT – 2000 UT. 

Sketch Media:

Black Strathmore Artagain paper

White Conte’ Crayon and pencil

White Prang pencil

Charcoal

White vinyl eraser

Scanned in Photoshop, adjustments made on contrast and brightness as well as
cleaning stray marks

Animation created in Animation Shop

Fire and Ice

Sun Ha

The Sun in Ha light on January 4th, 2008
By Erika Rix

2008 01 04
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA
Erika Rix
Solar

It was a beautiful sight today with the Sun gleaming off the snow. The snow was
melting fast as the temperature was slowly rising. Unfortunately, the snow didn’t
melt fast enough off the observatory roof, so I had to just drop down the upper part
of the southern wall and leave the roof completely on, otherwise, I would have had
to deal with water dripping on my gear in the observatory. As it turned out, it was
a good way to keep the winds at bay today, plus I’m sure kept me warmer in the more
enclosed space.

There were four very bright plage areas on the disk in h-alpha. One from NOAA 10981,
another large intricate plage structure for 10980, then a very thin bright one that
reached over to 10980 just inside the Eastern limb. The final was toward the West. I
could see a dark “spot” being cradled by the plage in 981, and by viewing in white
light, there was most definitely a small pore that appeared almost elongated. With
all the haze today plus winds during my white light filter session outside of the
observatory, it was difficult to tell if this elongation was another very tiny pore
just beside the larger one, or if it was just blurred from the conditions outside.
In any case, both to the NE and the SW of this dark dot were faint markings
resembling contrast of faculae. I couldn’t confirm what the markings were with this
observation.

 The Sun in white light

In white light, I could see no other evidence of active regions.

Getting back to h-alpha in the observatory, there were six areas of prominence
around the limb that I could see. With the haze and poor seeing conditions, I had to
wait for moments of clarity and steadiness to get good definition for closer looks.
Patience definitely proved to be valuable today.

The prominence to the SE just below the AR980 was very faint and fan-like. To the
very southern portion of it, it became brighter. I could almost make out all the
connections to each section of it.

Then at the western limb, slightly to the south was a very sharp brighter prominence
with several fingers reaching out like flames. I really enjoyed this one.

The show stopper of the session was most definitely the plage with a few dark thin
filaments looking as if they were separating the plage in AR980 and onward to the
eastern limb.

It’s said that a new solar cycle has begun, making it number 24. We’ll see, but it’s
looking promising.

A Solar Christmas

Solar Christmas

A Christmas Day solar collage
By Erika Rix 

2007 12 25

Solar

Erika Rix

PCW Memorial Observatory

Lat 40.01, Long -81.56

 It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to observe, but I was fortunate today to get
out behind the Maxscope to soak up a bit of Sun in the observatory.  Even with the
low altitude of the Sun at 26.5 degrees, the winter is still my favorite time of
year for solar observing.  

In the ENE region just inside the limb was a short, but thickened filament visibly
reaching out beyond the limb with two hairline branches, forming an intricate
network of prominences.  At lower magnification, this filament looked like two
separate sections.  Increasing magnification from 19x to 57x, the outer portion of
this filament looked like an elongated “X” with hair-like branches connecting to the
inner filament that swooped to the north.  The prominences consisted of two
brighter, almost “A” shaped areas with several very faint, wispy lines reaching out
to each other as well as other areas of the limb edge. 

Adjusting the outer Etalon, I observed a network of hairline fibrils across the disk
that, along with spicules, made a beautiful show of dark mottling across the
Chromospheric network.  There was an area of plage to the NE quadrant of the solar
disk.  It was separated into two sections, at times looking like three, with a few
very tiny dark dots around it.  I didn’t get out my white light filter for
cross-reference, so am not sure if these dark dots were actually pores.

Reaching further NNW, were more filaments, much thinner than the NE filament, but a
little more obvious than fibrils. And then off the limb was a very bright prominence
(at the bottom left of the sketch) that at first glance looked like a pair of cat
ears peeking over the limb.  The peaks of it first appeared to be swaying to the
East, but then forty-five minutes later, the two peaks turned toward each other.
Bumping up the magnification allowed me to see the amazing intricate structure of
this prominence.

To the WNW, a tiny little round prominence formed. It was very bright and dense.
Over the observation period, it reached out in a spraying fashion.  I thought this
one would change faster or maybe even break off or collapse before I called it a
day.  But the prominence stayed the same, only growing a few more tiny fingers off
the limb around it. 

There was only one other significant prominence, located to the SE, and several
spicules reaching out from the limb. 

The sketch was done on black Strathmore Artagain paper and a combination of white
Conte’ and Prang pencils, sharpened piece of black charcoal, and a white Conte’
crayon.  I sprayed it with a fixative afterwards.

Post processing after scanning involved -24 lightness, +15 contrast and then just
cropping and moving the sketches around for the finished collage.

Shadow of the Goddess

transit of Venus

The transit of Venus June 4th, 2007
By Michael Rosolina

While listening to the McDonald Observatory’s StarDate, I was surprised to hear that
this week marks the 125th anniversary of the 1882 transit of Venus.  In my mind I
was transported back to June, 2004 eagerly anticipating the first Venus transit
since 1882.  No one living at that time had ever seen such an event.

The transit would be nearing its end when the Sun rose at my location so I set up my
small, portable Astroscan telescope equipped with a homemade white light filter on
the mountaintop behind my home.  I wanted my wife to see this rare event too, so I
lured her out by saying I needed her to watch my back for bears (not entirely
untrue–it was mating season and the black bears were very active).

As the Sun rose, we were completely enveloped in a cloud but soon the mist thinned
and we could see the small black dot against the solar disk with the unaided eye.
As conditions improved, we employed filters on the scope and on a pair of 10×50
binoculars to track the progress of Venus towards the Sun’s limb.

During egress, I was fortunate to detect the aureole created by the planet’s
atmosphere.  This halo was first seen during the 1761 transit by Russian scientist
Mikhail Lomonosov, who rightly concluded that Venus had an atmosphere.  The egress
created some interesting contrast effects which I have tried to render as I saw
them.

I later discovered that there was indeed a small sunspot group near the Sun’s
central meridian, but I could not see it because of the poor transparency.

The sketch was done in the field with 2B and HB graphite pencils on Strathmore
paper.  I used a 4 inch template for the Sun and a penny to make the template for
the inset.

Seeing the transit was a peak experience for me (my wife was glued to the binoculars
through the whole thing, too).  It was also very gratifying to see how the event
brought the global amateur astronomy community together as we shared sketches and
images via the Internet.

The next Transit of Venus will be June 6th, 2012.  Clear skies to all in 2012–there
won’t be another transit for over a hundred years.

Solar Cornucopia

H-Alpha Sun

Solar Observation – November 23, 2007
PCW Memorial Observatory
By Erika Rix

Well the new active region doesn’t appear to have a designation yet (or even if it will), but I was able to make it outside for a few hours to observe. It was only scattered clouds during the observation and a little windy and chilly. But with the Sun at a very low altitude of approximately 27 degrees, it was still a struggle against time to observe in both h-alpha and white light before the trees obscured by view.

Paul opened up the observatory for me and by the time I got my scopes switched on the LXD, he was coming in with a cup of hot tea for me and Riser was curled up in a ball at my feet on his blanket.

The first thing I noticed in the Maxscope was a small bright plage area almost dead center in the solar disk. Bumping up the magnification, I found that it was actually broken off into two sections with fainter “arms” reaching to the east and west of it. There were hints of two darkened spots on either side of it, but I couldn’t confirm it in that bandwidth.

There were three areas of prominences on the Eastern limb, two that are included in the close-up sketches. On the western limb, there were just a few very tiny areas that looked like little spikes.

Just north of the prominence at approximately 90 degrees was a bright patch of plage, almost oblong with the western edge outlined a slightly darker hue. A very thin line of filament branched inward from the limb just north of the 90 degree mark, but could not see it extend outward off the limb against the dark background.

The prominence on the 140 degree mark had a fairly broad sectioned filament running north to south about 15 degrees inside the limb. It was broken into three obvious sections as well as a few very thin lines of filament in the same area.

After a brief few moments enjoying the countryside view from the drop down southern wall of the observatory, I grabbed my clipboard, a few pencils, my empty cup of tea and marched off to the house in my slippers and knitted hat, with Riser following close behind.

The ETX is stored in the house for a few reasons. The observatory isn’t quite big enough to house all the scopes plus it’s easy access for white light viewing to just drag the already set up scope outside from the living room.

Within minutes, I was sat behind the ETX with my sketchpad on my knee, recording what the new active region looked like in white light. There were two dominant smaller spots with an additional fainter spot just off of the larger one. Then, reaching out to the other side of the spots were long thin faint lines. I didn’t notice faculae, but I imagine the dark lines may have been the contrast of border from faculae.

The views were slightly softened today, so it was difficult to view granulation, but limb darkening was very noticeable.

h-alpha sketch media: black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ and Prang pencils, white Conte’ crayon for disk surface

white light media: copy paper, number 2 and .5mm mechanical pencils

White Light Sun

Precious Moments of Totality

Solar Eclipse

Solar Eclipse
By Serge Vieillard

If you were about to experience the brief but awesome spectacle of a solar eclipse, would you take the time to immerse yourself in a sketch of the event? If you have a passion for sketching astronomical objects and events, you may find yourself attempting what Serge Vieillard did. On March 29, 2006, Serge and 14 other club members journeyed to the Sahara Desert in Libya to view the eclipse. Racing across the dusty landscape in 4x4s to arrive at the site on time, they set up to the southeast of the volcano, Waw Enamous. As the eclipsed deepened, they found themselves entranced by an indescribable atmosphere: the sky darkened, Venus appeared, shadows began to shift, Bailley’s Beads began to sparkle, leading finally to totality. With that, the immense corona blossomed before them while solar prominences emerged and evolved as the moon passed before them.

Rather than photograph this awe inspiring event, Serge chose to harken back to an earlier era of astronomy and he sketched it instead. Because totality would only last 4 minutes, he had to be fast and deliberate in his sketching method, observing with a Kowa 77 mm TSN-2 for wide views of the corona, and a Meade ETX-90 at 100X for viewing the prominences. During those brief 4 minutes, Serge sketched the main contours of the corona, and sketched in the positions of the dancing prominences. Immediately after totality broke, he spent the next several minutes finishing the details of the sketch while it was still fresh in his mind.

Serge used colored pencils to add color to the sketch. However, since he was drawing on white paper and would be inverting it after scanning, he used a technique adapted from his previous color observations and sketches of M42, the Great Orion Nebula. By pre-testing, scanning, and inverting the color values of several pencils, he was able to determine what colors would produce the best color once the sketch was inverted after scanning. The results speak for themselves in this outstanding illustration.

The entry from Serge’s website is included below in the original French. (Google Language Tools may be helpful in translating if you do not read French.) More of Serge’s incredible sketches can be found at his website: ASTRONOMIE AMATEUR OBSERVATION VISUELLE CROQUIS ASTRO.

Eclipse totale du 26 mars 2006, dans le désert Libyen, au sud est du volcan waw Enamous. Une aventure exceptionnelle que nous avons vécue avec 14 copains(es) du club. Découverte d’un pays, du Sahara, d’un autre mode de vie. Course effrénée des 4×4 dans la poussière pour être présent sur le site au bon moment. Une ambiance indescriptible, assombrissement du ciel, apparition de Vénus, des ombres volantes partout, les premiers grains de Bailly, arrachage des filtres et ça y est ! Couronne solaire énorme, nombreuses protubérances dont la visibilité évoluera au fil du phénomène selon de déplacement de la lune. J’ai tenté ce croquis, évoquant à l’ère du numérique une astronomie d’une autre époque, ambiance 1900, à l’oculaire de la longue vue L80 pour la couronne et de l’ETX x100 pour les protubérances. Les 4 minutes sont passées comme un éclair. Je n’ai eu le temps que de marquer au mieux le contour des différents panaches. Tout de suite après la totalité, l’image encore en mémoire, j’ai apporté la texture particulière et les finitions pour ce résultat étrange…

A Trio of Isolated Prominences

Solar Prominences
Solar Prominences
By Erika Rix

Seeing today was terrible and I tried my best to hang in there for a few good moments to see anything on the other half of the Sun. There was a small prominence, but I just wasn’t able to catch the fainter large one that others were able to see.

I did have some nice views by playing with the Etalon. There were some hairline filaments, or perhaps just darkened lines, scattered about on the disk. And three areas of proms on the eastern half of the Sun can be shown in the sketch.

Sketch done on black Strathmore Artagain paper with Conte’ and Prang white pencils. The graphic on the upper right is from Les’ Tilting Sun program. Some areas blended slightly with fingertip.

Pillars and Threads of Plasma

Prominences and Filaments

Solar Prominences and Filaments
By Erika Rix

Erika’s composite solar H-Alpha sketch from October 29, 2007, features prominences along the eastern limb as well as delicate filaments on the solar disc itself. Material used: black Strathmore Artagain paper with a combination of white Conte’ pencil for the brighter, more dramatic areas and white Prang pencil for the fainter areas.

An Equestrian Prom

Solar Prominence

This is a sequence of the large prominence on the NW limb. I was so mesmerized by it that I wish I could have spent the entire day observing it. If you look closely, you can see a prancing Arabian horse in the prominence.

I used black Strathmore Artagain paper with a combination of white Conte’ pencil for the brighter, more dramatic areas and white Prang pencil for the fainter, whispy areas. I softened the black background in Photoshop to try and erase the splotchiness of the black paper as it took away from the faintest sections of the prominences.

Erika